ALEX FELDER OF Tri-Valley gives a Livingston Manor defender the classic stiff arm as he turns the corner on a running play in Saturdays game.

T-V Earns Fifth Straight Trip to 'D' Title Game

By Rob Potter
GRAHAMSVILLE  October 31, 2000  Tri-Valley earned its fifth straight trip to the Section IX  Class D championship game at Dietz Stadium with a thrilling overtime win over visiting Livingston Manor Saturday afternoon.
Tri-Valley fullback Durk Pearston bulled his way into the end zone on a two-point conversion play on the Bears overtime possession to give the hosts a 22-21 win over Manor.
With the win, Tri-Valley (36, 21 Class D) clinched a spot in the Class D title game versus Millbrook (81, 30 Class D). Kickoff for the championship contest is set for 2 p.m. Sunday at Dietz Stadium in Kingston.
Pearstons conversion run came just seconds after his 12-yard run up the gut of the Manor defense pulled Tri-Valley to within 21-20.
The overtime was necessary after T-Vs Arthur Felder  who rushed for a game-high 110 yards on 17 carries and recorded the first Bear touchdown on a five-yard run in the second quarter  scored on a five-yard touchdown run with 53 ticks left on the fourth quarter clock. Bear quarterback Josh Lowitz then dove into the end zone for the two-point conversion to knot the score at 14.
Manor (27, 03 Class D), however, had one last chance to win the game in regulation. With seven seconds on the clock, Wildcat fullback/kicker/punter Scott Denman lined up to kick a 30-yard field goal. But Pearston managed to leap up and get a hand on it, which sent the pigskin back to the turf short of the uprights. (Due to a complex tie-breaker system, however, Manor would have needed to defeat T-V by 13 or more points in order to secure a spot in the Class D title tilt.)
Under state high school overtime rules, each team gets one possession at the 20 yard-line. The squad has four downs to either score or make another first down.
Manor had the first crack at the end zone in the extra period. Following an eight-yard run by Travis Morton and two-yard gain by Denman, Morton scored on a 10-yard reverse play to put the Wildcats back on top 20-14. Denman then kicked the PAT to make it a seven point ball game.
It was a heart-stopper, T-V coach Max Stolzenberg said. That was an unbelievable game.
While his offense had crucial scores late in the fourth quarter and in overtime, Stolzenberg also gave his defense a great deal of praise. In the first quarter, Manor had three possessions deep in T-V territory but could only score seven points.
The defense played great, Stolzenberg noted. They were inside our 30 often in that first quarter and we held them to one touchdown. That was just a tremendous job by our defense.
Ironically, the Wildcats capitalized on a Tri-Valley miscue deep in the Bear end of the field in the games first three minutes. A botched snap on a punt set up Manor at the Tri-Valley 14 yard-line and four plays later Denman scored on a one-yard plunge for a 6-0 advantage. But those other Manor first-quarter possessions ended in a quarterback sack at the three-yard line on a fourth down play and a missed field goal.
We had those opportunities to score and we didnt, Manor coach Scott Branning said.
Branning also noted that injuries have depleted his substitute ranks all season.
I was standing here thinking no overtime, anything but overtime, Branning said. Our guys were getting really tired at the end.
Despite the injuries, which forced Manor to forfeit one game due to a lack of enough healthy players and kept the squad dangerously close to falling below the minimum number of players requirement in other weeks, Branning found somewhat of a silver lining.
We did the best we could and made it through the season, he said. We didnt want to lose today, but we did all we could do.
Stolzenberg, meanwhile, is happy to be going to Dietz. But he knows his team must improve against Millbrook, which defeated the Bears 21-0 back on September 2.
We had better retool a bit, he explained. We need to control the ball better. We only had a few minutes of good offensive football today.